


Light

by beekeepercain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s09e10 Road Trip, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1568174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abner had prayed for Gadreel’s well-being as much as he’d prayed for the well-being of his new family, and look where that had gotten him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light

* * *

 

Broken things let the light in, and not only in the metaphorical sense. Abner had seen the sunrise a million times before, literally, but it was different on that morning; different mainly because  _he_  was. He'd learned a thing or two during his lifetime, but not many of those lessons had stuck with him like these would.

Firstly, the angel he'd called his best friend was a deranged douchebag, or at least that's what Abner's (former, he tried to remind himself -  _former_ ) next door neighbour, Piers or Percy or Peter, had called Gadreel for his deeds on this fine morning, when Abner had definitely not stood on the porch in his full draining glory watching the cops search the house for evidence and listen to all those people mourn the loss of the guy he hadn't been.  
  
And yeah, secondly, he hadn't actually been Sarver at all. That would have probably kicked him in the figurative balls at some point if he'd stayed - especially with the wife, God bless that poor thing, slowly rediscovering her carnal attraction for the man that had ceased being her husband years before Abner had made an entry.

Which brought him quick to the third lesson: God didn't bless anything. He'd prayed for Gadreel's well-being as much as he'd prayed for the well-being of his new family, and look where that had gotten him. Sure, Gadreel was fine and alive, or - well, perhaps  _fine_  was the wrong word to describe his state, but alive, yeah, certainly. Much unlike Abner. Or Alexander. Abner wasn't certain anymore; he'd stayed for six months and some, and during that time the line between Abner and Al had certainly gone more than just slightly blurry. He was itching, even now, and his graceform didn't have skin to scratch - like a full-body phantom limb syndrome.  
So much for praying to Dad. This was clearly his final way of cutting ties, and Abner didn't wonder why. Apparently ceasing to be an angel wasn't something he was allowed to do. So be it. Good.

But why then,  _why_ , was he still standing in the yard like a low battery lighthouse? Why wasn't he out there, seeking another vessel, another beginning? Truth was, it stung. It stung worse than a blade in the gut and he'd had that a few times before.

 

* * *

 

The first time he'd seen Gadreel had been... less than glorious, for the both of them. It had never become quite clear why they ended up bunkmates after the forsaken sentry had been locked up for a long forever on his own, and Abner - Abner wasn't much of a criminal. A coward, yeah, but he hadn't unleashed hell into Eden and he hadn't ruined a universe, and his blasphemies could be counted with human fingers, which was better than for most angels. His sentence hadn't actually covered the darkest, deepest hole of the locker's, and it certainly hadn't involved the amount of torture he'd gone through. Alas, things weren't the way they'd used to be in the prison, so one thing led to the other and the other to the next and so on.  
He'd been dragged there like a bag of sand and thrown in, and it had probably taken him a week to notice Gadreel ever existed in the first place, mainly because that poor fuck wasn't really communicating at the stage they were introduced. Finding a grace so dimmed out with scars was a task even in the dark of the dungeon, and, if memory served right and it probably did, once Abner  _had_  spotted him, he'd rather pretended he hadn't, because the last thing he wanted was to make friends with some of Heaven's most wanted. Frankly, he'd been convinced the thing at the other end of the cell would probably bite if approached, so he never did.

It wasn't his choice, in the end, that got them closer.

Thaddeus had loved playing games. Even in the warm noon's sun when Abner had finally budged (but only after gracing the niblet's soft hair for that one last time to assure himself first and foremost that she'd be just fine without him) he remembered the twisted enjoyment that had radiated from the torturer the first time he'd realised the pairing was a gift from some higher power that Abner hoped to hell and back wasn't  _God_  of all creatures, because he had enough daddy issues even without the knowledge of that deadbeat bastard being the one responsible for the worst period of his existence.

Abner wasn't sure if it had been because, well, if there was someone who really knew Gadreel's weak points, it was definitely Thaddeus, or if the torturer had just had some divine insight into a guardian's mindset, but he'd soon figured that another presence would undoubtedly eventually arouse the old sentry's protective instincts, and that through this, Thaddeus would have an unforeseen opportunity to get just that much further below the surface. So once Abner, all without his knowledge, had become the brand new Garden for Gadreel, Thaddeus started taking him in and ruining him just to prove to Gadreel, once and for all, how worthless he was and how he could truly guard nothing, not even a lower ranking angel, much less some golden gate.  
Abner had never known an angel could bleed that much without breaking apart. He'd never known such pain could possibly exist in the universe. When he got back from his first session, wings broken beyond any recognition amongst the damage to his primary grace, that unshapely being in the corner had finally budged. He'd been too tired, too close to death to have the terror about it that would follow soon enough, but Gadreel had, for the first time since they'd been housed together, actually made a move and didn't just stop there, he came the whole mile.

He'd had that... that strange strength in him, hidden within the armour-like layer of scarring that Thaddeus had left him with. That was the thing Thaddeus really, really wanted to break (and never could, not really), and the thing that forged the first bond between the guardian and Abner. The younger couldn't really recall how it had happened; he assumed he'd been a bundle of fresh trauma, hissing and scratching like that cat trapped under the shed behind the house when the niblet had found it, and he did remember throwing a few sad punches - or whatever those pathetic motions could be called - in the sentry's direction, but that was pretty much the whole thing. Once Gadreel had laid his shattering hands over his form, however... that he remembered. The feeling of something solid pushing into him, seeping into his wounds, warming him and fixing him, making him whole like he'd felt he could never be again. For that moment, he'd felt so safe and good it didn't even matter that he was in a cell in the darkest dungeon in all Heaven. Nothing mattered, because there was such an amazing amount of affection and concern in the way that thing was caring for him.

Yeah.

Hard to imagine, what with the previous occasion of close contact between them having been the hard cold blade slitting Sarver's throat and everything. That damn thing hadn't even been Gadreel's. It was just someone's. All because - all because he had a yellow note that spelled the vessel's name. God knows why; Abner had tried to ask but there were only so many questions to land before you need to get the hell out or you die when someone's slitting your throat.

"I will let you live," that sad wretch had simply said, "It does not have to be you. Hide, Abner; go now."

If that was affection and care, then Gadreel had always been more like Thaddeus than he was like Abner, but for the while it had lasted... they'd made good friends.  
Things had changed after the fall. Many things.

 

* * *

 

Good relationships are the carrying force of a human's life, the councellor had said. Abner had been a little out of it, behaving strangely, and the wife was concerned. She feared, although she had no idea that Abner knew, that this new sudden turn from psychotic drunken Alexander to gentle but obnoxious and lost Abner was the final development towards spousal murder. She even sent the girl away for a bit, to meet her grandparents she'd told Abner, but really it was because if she had to die, then at least the girl would live.  
Not that Alexander was plotting a murder much less a double homicide, but things were going bad enough for them that Abner didn't really blame her for thinking so. The guy had been upstanding for the first seven years, but then he'd realised his life was basically over and the only noteworthy thing he'd done in his life had been witnessing a bunch of his closest friends get blown to pieces over a roadside bomb, so he'd decided to pick up the legacy and follow his father's steps into the mess he'd eventually become. Abner sympathised with all of that, really. He'd ran from his problems too and they'd only gotten worse from that point on.

So they sat in the seats listening to how important it was to be your spouse's best friend, and the only thing Abner could think of was Gadreel. Maybe it was the councelling or the flesh taking him for its own, but slowly over the months, Abner found that his obsession lessened. Sure, he loved Gadreel, but the guy was probably dead and if not, then so deep underground he'd never surface again, for good reasons. So he prayed for him and decided to move on with his life. Become, in essence, Alexander Sarver.  
And he fell in love, as much as an angel could; he adored his family, his grace felt like... like it held the whole universe within when he held that little girl, and his world spun around for the first time since forever when he held his wife's hand in his own. He took them all over, as much as the budget allowed, making up for what Alexander had failed, and the man inside him grew quieter and calmer with each passing day. Abner was living his life a whole hundred percent better than he'd been and he was happy to sleep through it, happy to take the time to recover knowing his family was safe from him as much as it was safe from literally every other thing - but he didn't know of Gadreel.

Damn it, _Abner_ hadn't known of Gadreel. He'd nearly forgotten. It was a dull ache, a golden memory, until that day the angel he'd presumed dead suddenly walked into his garden. Damn that day.

Damn the pain it had flooded into him, all that longing and grief he'd gone through in the long nights that he pretended sleep for the sake of his family's peace of mind after figuring that they freaked out if he never laid down for rest or ate or any of that other stuff he'd grown fond of during the long months.

Gadreel's vessel didn't do him much more favours than his scarred grace had. Sure, it was a damn palace, but it was a palace after burning down and Abner couldn't really envy him for it. The angel himself had the same telling burned wings as the rest of them and he was stressed, worn thin, near a breaking point like always before - he'd clearly gotten no break since the fall, and Abner had felt sorry for him until it had turned out that he'd be the one paying for it.  
Well, he did understand; he'd made some gruesome errors in his approach. He'd made clear he was doing just fine without Gadreel. Think about it: someone devotes his existence to you and only you, and you tell him that yeah, maybe you missed him at one point, but look, you don't really  _need_ him like he needs you. You're complete on your own.  
And he's not.

So it wasn't Sarver that picked up the blade - it was Abner's past that sealed the fate of that family.  
Such is the nature of lies and light; the truth always wins and the walls always break.


End file.
